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Obama shoveling the BS bragging his administration is increasing the supply of oil???
Blaming Obama for gas prices unfair, but just It’s unfair to blame President Barack Obama for high gas prices. But there’s some poetic justice in him getting blamed for them. Obama is running around the country saying he’s an “all-of-the-above” energy guy. It’s pretty pathetic to watch. Obama didn’t run for president as an all-of-the-above energy guy. He hasn’t governed as an all-of-the-above energy guy. Obama ran for office, and has attempted to govern, as an anti-fossil fuels guy. Remember his claim when he cinched the Democratic nomination, that this would be remembered as “the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal”? That wasn’t because universal health care would be passed. It was because Obama was going to cut down on the use of fossil fuels. And he was going to do that, in part, by increasing the cost of fossil fuels. The whole purpose of the cap-and-trade regimen Obama tried to get Congress to pass is to put a price on carbon emissions and increase the cost of the fuels that produce them. Higher gas prices, as well as higher prices for electricity produced from fossil fuels, were part of the Obama policy. Obama also proposed to reduce the use of fossil fuels by massively subsidizing alternatives, such as solar, wind and biofuels. This was not only his environmental policy. It was his economic policy, as well. The Obama economy was going to be built on green energy jobs that weren’t subject to foreign competition or being exported. The massive subsidization of alternative energy sources part of the Obama agenda has been implemented. But the early returns aren’t encouraging. Large solar-concentrating plants are having a hard time getting off the ground despite the massive subsidies. Wind requires huge investments in transmission that don’t pencil out for an intermittent source of power. As it turns out, green energy manufacturing is as subject to global competition as any other kind of manufacturing. This is most clearly evident in solar panels. The Obama administration has slapped tariffs on Chinese imports. Domestic producers, despite the subsidies, are struggling and several have gone bankrupt. And now that gas prices are sky-high, at least in the minds of voters, Obama is running around the country bragging about all the drilling for fossil fuels that has happened on his watch. I guess slowing the rise of the oceans and healing the planet can wait until the second term. Obama is being more than a little disingenuous. The increase in drilling has occurred on private lands. On federal lands, it has gone down – just as you would expect from Obama the anti-fossil fuels guy. But those who blame Obama for high gas prices are also being disingenuous. There are no alternative federal energy policies that could have been pursued over the last three years that would have made a material difference in today’s price of gas. And those who maintain that all that stands between the American people and low gas prices are Obama and other greenies blocking domestic production are selling their own acre of sunshine. Obama is wrong to pooh-pooh the potential of expanded production of domestic traditional energy sources. But even if a true all-of-the-above strategy were pursued and barriers to domestic production substantially lowered, it is unclear how much additional production would actually take place. It would depend on how the cost of production in the United States compared to the cost of production elsewhere. Here’s the only thing we can know for sure: we don’t need for politicians to figure this out. Americans buy more than $1 trillion of energy a year to make things run or go. If politicians would stop trying to tip the balance, markets would figure out the most cost-effective way to meet those needs. |